Journey of Remembrance
by Shadsie
Summary: When the pebbles fell upon the world, there was an unexpected survivor. As the citizens of Gunsmoke build their world, she will search for those she lost, and bear witness to dystopia.
1. Dawn Breaks on a Foreign Horizon

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun; I just own the tapes, one volume of the manga, an artbook, and a Vash action figure.  I also own lots of my own fanart for the series, but that's beside the point.  I'm making no money from this, blah. 

This story began as a "what if?" pondering, as most of my stories do.  I was inspired, I believe, by a story that asked this same "what if?" but handled it in a far different way than I am attempting to. This is just another weird story from a weird author. 

I work two jobs and am thus quite busy – not to mention inspired to do my original stuff in my free time as well as fanfic and junk – so I do not know how often this will be updated.  Please have patience.

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JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

She awoke.  

The world was yellow-white, a blur of pain and confusion.  Sunlight pierced her vision, making her feel like someone had thrust hot daggers into her eyes.  Her head felt like it was being crushed in a vise and she felt the veins pulse in her temples.  She moaned and tried turning, but the horrific light just would not go away.  

Her left thigh felt like it was on fire.  She noticed that she felt nothing of her left leg below that – then the nausea hit.  The woman rose up, doubling over, rocking on her spine, spasming in dry heaves before falling back into the sand.  

Sand.  Sand?  

It was unmistakable – the stony grit in her hair.  Her limbs felt like jelly but she raised an arm instinctively to block the sun from her face.  A white glove – plastic, vinyl...synthetic.  A similar material, though rent and tattered, clung to her arm, but it was of a teal hue.  

"Suit," came to her mind, "Spacesuit." 

She closed her eyes, the pulse in her head and in her thigh driving her nearly mad with pounding agony.  

"That's right...," she mouthed to herself, no words escaping her dry lips but her voice clear in her mind, "Space... in space... Alpha Ship of Project SEEDS...orbiting a planet.  But where am I now?"   

An image and an echo presented themselves in her mind, a cloudy memory and an impression of urgency.  A little boy was screaming her name.  Oh, yes, that was her name, wasn't it?  The child screamed it over and over again, urging her not to do something, urging her not to leave him – them.

"Vash...Knives..." Rem whispered.  "Where?  Got to...find them..."  She tried to rise, but fell with a thud back into the sand, weak, and hit with the pain in her thigh anew.  Wind blew, and above her something groaned.  A sheet of twisted metal spun and danced in the gale, threatening to tear away from the curved steel spire arching above her.  It was then that Rem noticed just how hot she was.  

"We were... looking at a desert planet, weren't we?  In a twin star system," she recalled in whispers.  However, the heat she felt was not heat from the air around her, which felt cold.  The sand she was lying on felt colder still.  Coursing through her was a fever-heat.  

She turned her head to see silhouettes not-too-distant.  Two distinctly avian shapes carried something off into the sky with unearthly yet vulture-like squawking.  Other shapes of the same kind, a mass of them, pecked and scratched at something on the ground that Rem did not want to think about.  She shifted wearily to turn her gaze to the left.  Her eyes met the eyes of another – and this other was definitely not human.  

The face was white, the pale color of bleached bones.  It looked feminine, and the ears were strangely pointed, almost elfish.  Her blonde hair was long and covered her otherwise naked body.  Feathers of a white purer than fresh snow surrounded her.  The dark streamers of blood that glimmered off some of them were made all the darker by the contrast.  She looked at Rem with crystalline eyes, tainted with blue.  They looked like they were made of diamond or glass.  It was one of the Alpha Ship's Plants.  

The Plant stared at her with mouth agape.  She trembled slightly and reached her hand out to Rem.  Rem struggled to reach out to her.  A tear streamed down the human's cheek.  "You're hurt..." she whispered.  "I-I... want to help you... but I think I'm dying, too."  

Rem tried to get up again, only to fall back, dizzy and panting.  She reached out her hand and gently clutched the hand of the Plant.  "What happened to us?"  

Blurred memories stirred.  Something had happened to the crew.  Rem remembered that the mechanic, Steve, was sentenced to freezing for the alleged rape of Mary, one of the technicians and one of her closest friends.  "Oh God!" Rem exclaimed, "Rowan! Rowan shot Mary! And... and..."  

Rem's head fell back into the sand.  She closed her eyes, feeling the Plant's grip on her hand tighten.  "There was some strange program in the guidance system.... I put the boys in an escape pod...  I – don't know what happened after that... Joseph... did he do it?  Did he save the fleet?  We must have crashed....  Oh, no..."  She tried to recall, but she remembered nothing after sending Vash and Knives off in the escape pod. She tried to envision what had happened, struggling to remember anything after that, but all was nothing until the moment she had awakened in the sand. 

The pain in her head increased.  She wanted to scream, but no sound came out.  "Vash," she whispered, staring at the sky – which was blue and filled with thin mares' tail clouds.  "Vash... Knives... I... hope you will find a way...auugh...ah!...ah! to live.  I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry... My boys... my dear little boys..."  

The Plant's grip went slack for a moment in her hand.  Rem turned to her.  "I'm sorry..." she mouthed.  The Plant closed its eyes and squeezed her hand – hard this time.  Rem's palm and fingers felt suddenly hot and tingling.  A single word echoed in her mind.  

"Live."  

"What?" Rem asked.  The Plant-angel responded by going limp.  It took Rem a few moments thereafter to realize that the gentle whistle of her breath, which she had been hearing all since she had awakened but had not realized, was gone.  Her hand in Rem's, the Plant had died.  

The angelic creature's wings began to disappear, the feathers flying up into the breeze and utterly vanishing.  The body began to shrivel, strangely, the skin turning black.  Soon, what lay there was a charred and twisted form, a perverted shadow of the magnificent angel that once was.  The Plant now looked like nothing more than a severely burned human corpse.  Rem felt nauseous again.  

Suddenly, the woman heard voices.  They were garbled and somewhat distant, but distinctly human.  She tried to cry out, but her throat was sore and constricted, and no sound issued forth but a soft whisper.  "Help..." she mouthed, "Please... help..."  

The voices grew more distant.  Rem's heart sank.  She accepted that she would die here, just like the Plant.  She tried to imagine Heaven as she began a silent prayer.  At least she would see Alex again.  

"Over here!  There's a survivor!  Quick!  Over here, over here!"  

The voices had returned.  

"Get a Coldsleep tube over here pronto!  She's in bad shape... she's breathin' though."  

" I didn't think anything would survive this wreck."  

"Musta got trapped in a pocket.  I don't think she'll be alive much longer, but we gotta try."  

"Oh man!  Her leg! It's..."  

"Never mind that and help me with her!"  

Rem felt the warmth of hands ease their way gently beneath her shoulders, and felt her body being lifted up.  After that, she knew nothing but darkness.  

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END CHAPTER 1

To be continued!! Turn to the Next!! 


	2. Sedona and Greer

JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

Part II 

Light fell in brilliant yellow bars across the thin top sheet of the bed she lay in.  She was in a hot, stuffy room that smelled of dust, rust, and a tiny bit of blood.  The walls – what the woman could see of them, appeared to be made of metal plates rough-welded together.  The window through which the sunlight filtered was barred with flat iron slats.

Rem lifted her right arm to find it covered in bandages.  It hurt and her head felt hazy.  She could feel nothing below her waist.  She was horribly thirsty.  

"Good to see you awake," a soft, deep voice said.  Rem looked for where the voice had come from.  She felt something warm touch her left hand and saw a bearded face above her.  

"Water," she whispered.  It was the only thing she could think about at the moment.  The man looked behind his shoulder and shouted to someone Rem couldn't see.  

"Mirabelle, fetch us some water, pronto!" 

A gruff female voice responded.  "They're running the Hydro-Plant at the limit of capacity.  We can't spare water for the dying."  

"Just a pint, Mirabelle.  Have a heart!  She'll make it."  

"That's whatcha said about the last one.  By the looks of her, I'd say she ought to be given a lethal now and besides, how's she gonna survive out here wit only one leg?"

Rem lurched up in bed, appalled at what was being said about her.  "No!"  she choked with her dry and burning throat.  "Must live...gotta...find my boys..." she fell back down into her pillow.  

"Easy, easy now," the man beside her bed intoned.  "Don't mind Mirabelle.  She's all talk and nonsense and she _is_ going to fetch you some water.  Right, Mira?" 

"Yeah, yeah," Mirabelle groused as she left the room.  She returned a few minutes later carrying a glass, which she handed to the man.  The man gently placed the vessel's edge to Rem's lips.  She drank deeply, choking and coughing a few times in the process, being a bit overzealous in the drinking.  The water slid down her throat in a cool, refreshing wave.  

"Th-thank you." she whispered to her companion.  "Where am I?  I've got to find Vash and Knives."  

Rem tried to get up again, only to fall back.  The bushy-bearded man placed his hand on her forehead.  "Easy," he said  "You just got out of surgery yesterday and you won't be going somewhere for quite some time."

"Surgery?"  Rem asked, "Huh?"  

"Listen.  You've been through an awful lot.  We're in the hospital – I guess you could call it a hospital... it's so ramshackle, but the best we could manage.  We're in Sedona.  Sedona... it's what we call this town.  You were the only survivor from your ship.  We found a few from your vessel – from the Coldsleep cargo - several days after the Crash, but they all perished before we could get them into undamaged cryo-chambers."

"They all...died?"  Rem questioned, barely managing a squeak.  

"I'm sorry." The gentleman replied.  "I know, I know. Don't cry.  We've had you in Coldsleep for nine months.  I didn't want to take you out so soon, because of the extent of your injuries, but the power began failing.  You suffered many second-degree and a few third-degree burns to the right half of your body.  Your left..."  He sighed, continuing on, "We tried to save your leg, but it was a lost cause.  Had to amputate just above the knee.  We can fit you with a prosthetic... if you survive."   

Rem stared at the man.  

"I'll make sure you survive.  My name is Greer, Dr. Salem Greer.  I was a member of the cargo on SEEDS vessel 171.  From what data we could gather, we know you were on Alpha Ship.  Your survival is critical if we are to find out what happened... why we crashed on this desert world.  No need to speak now.  You need to rest.  I do need to ask, Miss, can you tell me your name?  Do you remember your name?  Most of the crew records we found-"

"Saverem..." Rem whispered, "Record keeper and Plant Technician Rem Saverem.  Has anyone found..." Rem felt dizzy and had to pause for a moment, "Has anyone seen my boys?  Twins... they look around eleven years old, blonde... Knives has blue eyes, Vash has light green eyes... very fair skin, spiky hair – at least Vash... Knives' hair is shorter..."  

Greer calmly interrupted her.  "No one around here's found any children matching that description.  Miss, I'm sorry, but no one from Alpha Ship except for you survi - "

"No." Rem said as forcefully as she could muster, squeezing Greer's hand and looking straight at him, her eyes clearer than Greer had yet seen them.  "I sent them in an escape pod.  I must find them."  

"Whoa, girl!  You can't get up!  You're forgetting you've just had your leg sawed off!  You don't feel it now, but when the morphine wears off - "

"Aah!" Rem screamed upon inadvertently stretching a particular muscle.  

"See?" the doctor scolded.  "We'll find them.  Rest now.  I'll be here for anything you need."  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was several days before Rem was allowed to see, firsthand, the extent of her wounds.  She was given a mirror with which to see her face.  A rather elegant smattering of light burn scars ran up the right side of her neck and right cheek.  The markings reminded her, vaguely, of the markings of a Trill in the mythology of "Star Trek," one of her favorite ancient science fiction television universes.  

Her right arm was a web of scars, puckered white and red.  Dr. Greer remarked that it was quite a lucky thing that she could still move it without much trouble.  He helped her in physical therapy, getting her out of bed and onto a crutch.  He took her outside the confines of the hospital for brief periods, where she could witness the life and building of Sedona firsthand.  

In the center of the village was a massive glass bulb, the main Plant.  Around it, built from scavenged spaceship scrap and adobe, were tiny houses and shops.  Most of the windows on these were made from polymer scraps and special heat-shielding glass, scavenged from the ship that crashed here.  However, there was a working glassblower in town who made use of the plentiful local sand.  

"We named it after a place in the Arizona region of the old United States back home," Greer explained.  "Sedona – it was the name of a town surrounded by red canyon walls."  He pointed to the high cliffs that surrounded the budding city.  "These red cliffs reminded a few of our people from the Arizona region of Sedona.  The original Sedona was said to have special energy vortexes.  I don't know about this place, but it was a lucky thing, if you could call any part of the Crash lucky, that a ship crashed right here.  We have a main plant and a small Hydro-Plant to keep us going and to build the city around.  These cliffs make a perfect shelter from typhoons and stand storms."  

"Typhoons?" Rem asked.  "Is there an ocean near here?"  

"No, no, no," Greer replied.  "As far as we've heard from transmissions from others... no one on this planet has seen anything resembling an ocean.  We just call the fiercer windstorms typhoons because they act that way.  Furious, like typhoons and hurricanes, but born of the seas of sand."  

Rem's recovery was a slow and painful process.  Salem Greer told her that she was healing astonishingly fast, but her burns pained her for what seemed eternity and learning how to use the crutch effectively was a long process through which she endured many falls.  

The most painful part of the process was the attachment of the prosthetic.  It had to be done without anesthesia or pain reducers of any kind.  The cybernetic leg Dr. Greer and the other physicians of Sedona fitted her for needed to have some of its inner wiring connected directly into nerves for it to work properly.  The nerves of the remaining leg needed to be alive and fully active in order for the major connections to be made in the correct places.  

Rem screamed in agony and writhed with every connection made.  Mirabelle, and another nurse, a muscular woman by the name of Sforzando Bluesummers, held her down as the procedure was done.  

Salem Greer took her to his home to recover from the attachment.  Rem had a leg again, but would be sore and unable to use it for several days.  The staff of the hospital felt that, since she was otherwise healthy, that she was taking up valuable bed space. In any case, Rem really had nowhere to stay, no home of her own.  

Most of the citizens of Sedona lived with people who had no familial relationship to them.  There were many couples and groups of threes, fours, and fives, and even more – who had all been strangers before the Crash, living together in the same small houses.  Salem Greer was a lone widower.  He lived with the Bluesummers family.  

Rem thought the Bluesummers a lovely bunch.  There was Sforzando, a woman in her early forties who was the daughter of a farmer back on Earth.  Her husband was a rather thin, tall man by the name of William.  They had a son and daughter between them, ages nineteen and twelve, respectively.  They were Soprano and Melody.   The children both had the strangest blue-violet tint to their hair, inherited by their father.  The hair was a natural feature, surprisingly, for the color.  William Bluesummers explained that his grandfather had been a "designer baby", a genetic modification before such practices were outlawed.  Anomalies that presented themselves in the body of the original "designer" were occasionally passed down to their offspring.  

Among "designers" were genetic results unforeseen by the doctors who modified their embryonic DNA.  Most of these results were rather harmless, such as unnatural hair and eye colors.  Some of these were dangerous deformities.  Sforzando herself was descended from a "designer", as well.  Her hair was brown and her eyes green, but she had what she called "mind-empathy", a low-level ability to feel the emotional anguish and to read the emotionally charged thoughts of others.  She claimed that she could never really "read anyone's mind", but that she could know what someone was truly feeling, the agony behind a faked smile, to know when someone was telling a lie.    

Through all of this, a rather disastrous clerical error occurred.  The city of Sedona had the name of Rem Saverem among their Crash survivors, holding her in high esteem as a friend in the village and knowing what her rank and duties had been.  Somehow, however, the village record keepers had forgotten to mark her down as a survivor in their files, due, in all probability, to the confusion among who belonged to what ship among the residents of Sedona.  Most of the villagers were from the ship that had crashed precisely within the canyon of hard red rock, but there were many citizens who had come from other crashed vessels scattered around the area within a 20-mile radius.  

In any case, the record that was sent out to all the other budding villages and remaining intact ships that could be contacted listed the Alpha Ship of Project SEEDS as having "No Survivors."  Sadly, for a certain red-clad gunman, that was an error that would never be corrected.  

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To be Continued!! Turn to the Next!!


	3. Nature

Notes:  I'm sorry for taking so long in getting this chapter up!  Lately, my muse has attacked me on doing original stuff – writing the meat and the ending of a short story I had been working on and drawing advance pages for my webcomic.  With me, original stuff usually takes precedence over my fan work.  I also recently switched domains for my original art and writing website (got my own domain), and even more recently finished the fan art and fanfiction sub domain on that, so I've had those to work on.  If anyone is interested, my main domain is listed under my website, and the subdomain for fanworks is "Devotion" in the Links. 

I also got to go to Anime Expo this summer.  It was my first anime convention, and I got to meet a lot of my good online friends there.  It was awesome!  If anyone reading this was there – I was the dorky female Vash sprouting Angel Arm feathers out of my shoulder and right glove.  ^_^; I also passed out little "Vash the Stampede" business cards I designed.  

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JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

Part III 

"Rem..." he called out, shaking and shivering.  "Is it you?"  

The sands at her feet were silver-gray in the moonlight, and there, cushioned and covered in blankets, sheltered from the wind by a rock cleft, was a little boy.  

"Vash! I'm here Vash!" Rem said, dropping to her knees and reaching out to touch his forehead.  The tips of her fingers appeared to pass through his skin.  Another child hiked up the sand dune, bearing a metal canteen.  

"Vash," Knives said, dropping to his knees opposite of Rem.  He apparently did not see her.  Knives placed his own small fingers to Vash's forehead and gently placed the canteen to his lips.  "The fever hasn't broken yet. Drink." 

Vash softly moaned.  "Hot...cold... Knives, how long have I been sick?  How did this happen?"

"Four days, Vash.  I think it might be flu.  There could be any number of pathogens on this planet we don't know about."

"Thought we didn't get sick..." 

"I don't think we're supposed to, Vash... other Plants don't seem to...."  Knives paused for a long time.  "But... we both did get that cold that one time."

Vash laughed weakly.  "Yeah... after the water-fight in the Rec. Room.  Rem was worried but it wasn't as bad as this..."  

Knives' expression soured at the mention of Rem's name.  Vash coughed several times.  Knives stared out over the sea of dunes.  "We're miles away from any of our brethren," he sighed. 

Rem gazed upon this scene, silent, and apparently unknown.  She was there, but knew, somehow, that she wasn't.  Her form seemed to have no substance.  She stroked Vash's cheek, but felt no warmth from it.  He turned his face to her, his eyes widening, as if he had just seen her and was startled.  

"Rem?" he asked, "Rem, I'm so sorry..." 

"What?" Knives asked angrily, "Vash, what are you talking about?" 

"She's here..." Vash responded, "Rem, I - "

"Vash, you're hallucinating.  Snap out of it!  Stop talking about that damned woman!  She's not here!" 

Vash reached out toward the vision he saw, trying to grasp her hand.  "I said I'd always be there for you... I said I'd never leave you..."  

"She's dead, Vash."

"He killed you, Rem...I should have seen...I should have stopped..."

"Vash! Will you stop it with this nonsense?" 

"What?" Rem questioned.  Knives' face held a look of both great anger and genuine worry.  He grabbed Vash by the shoulders and shook him.  "Listen to me, Vash, she can't have you!  She can't have you!"  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A rooster crowed.  Rem's eyes fluttered open and she gently put the fingertips of her right hand to her forehead.  She hauled herself upright and sat in bed, blinking at the sunlight coming through the gauzy white curtains of her bedside window.  

"A dream," she said to herself.  "But... it felt... so real.  He was sick...Vash was sick and I couldn't help...Why was Knives so angry?"  

Rem was startled by the clink of a ceramic teacup against a dish.  The bedroom door was open and Melody stepped through it, as quiet as a corpse.  She held a cup and saucer in her delicate hands and was dressed in a thin pink nightgown.  Upon her feet were fuzzy slippers, which muffled her steps to silence.  

"Miss Saverem?" she said, "I brought you some tea.  Are you okay?  You were talking to yourself again."  

"Oh, I'm alright." Rem replied, "You don't have to call me 'Miss Saverem.'  I've told you before – I'm just Rem."

"Daddy says I need to be polite.  Were you dreaming about Alex again?  You were talking to him the last time."

"No." Rem whispered.  "That felt like a dream.  This felt real."

Melody set the teacup and saucer on the bedside table.  "Would you like some toast or eggs or something?  I can check if the hens laid this morning." 

"Yes, that will be fine."  

Rem spun around in the bed, carefully lifting her prosthetic leg and hauling it over the side.  Her natural leg felt stiff and sore.  She shivered as she caught a gentle morning chill, and rubbed the arms of her thin fuzzy pajamas.  She couldn't help but smile, remembering how she got them.  They were a gift from the Bluesummers family, white, and covered with a pattern of little red flowers.  They weren't exactly geraniums, more like a made-up flower to fit the design, but the thought behind them was sweet.  

"Daddy and Dr. Greer are going to go to the livestock market today," Melody said, "Daddy said we need a couple of thomases and saddles.  He hopes the things will be able to pull a plow 'cause we sure can't afford a horse."  

"I wonder why people have been calling them 'thomases,'" Rem quietly said.  She knew the native species of this planet, as the herds of the animals often grazed on rock-lichen just outside of town.  They were unruly, ornery creatures, unlike the few horses and asses salvaged from Coldsleep stock and generated from genetic samples using the Plants.  

Some people joked that the thomases must have been the result of DNA screw-ups in the Crash, but most held that they were animals native to this sandy planet.  They were strange beasts, almost a cross between mammal and bird, and even dinosauric in some ways.  It was speculated that their enormous bony facial overplates were an adaptation to protect them from the sandy desert winds.  Though rather ornery, they were remarkably easy to domesticate – probably because they had few natural predators and had never encountered humans until recently.  

Melody helped Rem out of bed.  "I think it has something to do with a guy named Thomas," she said, "Heard a rumor that the guy who started the thomas trade had a cousin named Thomas and that he named the critters after him for whatever reason."  

Melody and Rem entered the dining room.  William, Sforzando and Dr. Greer were there, drinking a kind of coffee made from the beans of a species of local scrub-bush.  Soprano stood at the kitchen counter, his hands covered in pale green feathers and bright crimson blood.  Rem stared.

"What are you doing?" she gently gasped. 

"We just got in from morning hunting," William Bluesummers explained.  "Soprano and I shot some of them little greenquail.  Poultry for breakfast!"

Rem started at Soprano's work.  On the counter were ten small carcasses.  Soprano made quick work of plucking them, then, with quick flicks and heavy chops with a large hunting knife, removed their heads and eviscerated them, throwing the unwanted parts into a basket on the floor.  The "greenquail" were birds the size of pigeons and they very much resembled quail of Earth.  They had cream-colored breasts, pale green body feathers and golden head-crests.  Sforzando happily hummed as she gathered the cleaned birds into a roasting pan and sprinkled them with herbs. 

"Rem, are you okay?" Salem Greer asked as she sat at the table, silent, wringing her hands nervously.  

"I – I...." she began, "do we have any toast or eggs or anything? I'm... I'm not trying to be rude..." 

"Hmmm?" Soprano interjected, sitting down after having cleaned himself up and donning fresh clothing, "This is the first meat we've had since... well, almost since the Crash."  

Rem looked down.  "I'm a vegetarian," she whispered.  "I don't like meat much.  I haven't had any in a long time."  

"Oh," Soprano said blankly. 

"You should have some," Greer insisted, "Try to keep it down if you can.  You need the protein and the iron right now – besides, it's all we've got."  

Sforzando dished out the birds, one apiece on small ceramic plates, leaving the rest in the roasting pan on the center of the table for anyone who wanted seconds.  Rem nervously cut into the breast of her roast fowl and lifted a tiny piece of flesh to her lips with a fork.  She stared at the pale cooked threads of muscle and the tiny red veins that snaked through it.  She closed her eyes and gulped it down.  

The greenquail had a mild but not very pleasant flavor.  The flesh was tough and bitter with the flavor of the scrub-bush leaves the bird had lived on.  Rem was very hungry, so she continued to eat, despite the poor flavor of the meat and the twinge of guilt she felt.  

She didn't begrudge people who ate meat.  She understood that animals ate each other to survive and that it was simply the way of nature.  She, herself, however, felt guilty at the thought of an animal being forced to give its life for her.  She'd never much liked the taste of meat, either, and had been a vegetarian since she was twelve years old.  She felt no guilt over eating eggs or drinking milk, because animals didn't die to provide people with those things, and she would have felt less guilty if she were eating replicated meat, but as it was, this was all she had to eat and she needed the protein right now.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rem sat on the fence of the thomas pen with Salem Greer.  It had been two weeks since the family had purchased their thomases, five in all.  The pen was built of welded metal, pieces of spaceship, recycled to new usage.  Everyone was still trying to come up with names for the animals and Rem took a special liking to the white one – a creature whose cream-coloration stood out sharply from that of its shaggy brown comrades.

"I shoved Vash in..." Rem recalled, "Knives was already inside.  Vash did not want to go without me..."  Her voice trailed off, becoming incredibly sad.  "He kept begging me – begging for me to get inside.  But... I had to try to save the fleet.  I had to help Joey... I -  That is all I remember.  I started running back to the Bridge... I just can't remember anything beyond that.  It's all blank... until I woke up in the wreckage."

Rem broke down into heavy sobs.  Greer put his right arm around her.  "I failed!  We must have failed!  The Crash.... it was... a disaster!  It shouldn't have happened this way!"

"Shhhh.... you didn't fail..." Greer gently said, rubbing the young woman's back.  "You did all you could.  The important thing is that we're alive.  We are making a life here, on this ball of sand.  We are alive."   

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The survivors of the Crash, or the Fall, as it was alternately called, did indeed make a life.  All over the planet, in the disparate places the ships had crashed and Plants survived, cities and towns sprang up.  There were even a few settlements built apart from Plants, but those were very few and often didn't last long.  The Plants made the harsh soil useable for crops, and provided most of the water the people used.  There was groundwater on this planet, and wells were dug with much hard labor, but it wouldn't have sustained the people for long without the Plants.  

In the early years, people ran the Plants hard, out of necessity for survival.  There was talk of a few towns that had run their Plants too hard, and killed them with exhaustion.  As much as the Plants provided, resources were scarce.  Most people made do with their scarcity, trying to live as much in harmony with the Plants and with the land as possible.

Some people, however, turned to simply taking from others.  Feeling cheated out of their futures, some people formed roving bandit gangs.  Arming themselves, they ruled the outlands and raided peaceful towns.  In response, many peaceful folks took up arms to defend themselves from these outlaws.  It wasn't very long before people began to nickname their new planet "Gunsmoke." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gunfire shattered the peace of the morning.  Rem sat up straight in bed and the sounds of running echoed through the house.  

"Get in the house! Get in and stay down!" the voice of Salem Greer shouted.  Panicked and confused, Rem took a look out the window.  Eight men, armed with rifles, daggers and handguns, sat mounted on thomases outside in a semi-circle around the house.  Rem rolled out of bed onto the floor and ducked behind the bed.  Bullets shattered the bedside window.  

The leader of the bandits shouted. 

"Come out, ya cowards!  Face us!"  

"What do you want?" William Bluesummers cried.  "We are not rich.  All we've got are a few thomases and a few chickens.  We are peaceful people.  Leave us be!"  

Rem struggled to get up.  Her cybernetic leg jammed.  She tried to bend the knee, but the mechanism didn't respond.  She dragged herself along the floor, toward the living room and the voices of the others.  The metal prosthetic was a dead weight, scraping the clay floor-tile, keeping Rem from getting up or getting far.  

"We know ya got women-folk in thar!" the bandit-leader yelled.  "We want 'em!  Send 'em out and we'll let the rest of ya be!"  

"Never!" shouted Soprano.  Rem heard the click of his hunting rifle being loaded and cocked, William's also.  She managed to crawl through the door and out into the main living area.  She saw Dr. Greer load a pistol.  Sforzando and Melody huddled behind the couch.  Soprano and William were crouched behind an overturned table, but made ready to go out with their guns.  

"No!" Rem pleaded, "It doesn't have to be this way!" 

"Stay down, Rem!" Greer commanded.  "We aren't going to let them take you!" 

"Maybe we can talk to them?" Rem asked, "Let me go out - "

"No, Rem!" Greer barked, heading out the door with his pistol drawn, followed by William and Soprano.  

"Please!" Rem cried, struggling with her leg, desperately trying to stand, "There's got to be another way!" 

She winced as gunfire erupted again.  Soprano fell back through the front door with a scream, holding his right arm.  

"My boy!" Sforzando cried, running to him and catching him in her heavy arms.  

"Mother, get back!" the young man growled.  Sforzando, instead of heeding him, grabbed his rifle and headed out the door.  

"Mom!" he yelped, getting up despite his heavy bleeding.  He went after her.  

"Mother!" Melody screamed, crawling out from behind the couch.  

Rem grunted and struggled with her leg again.  This was madness!  To her surprise, the knee bent and she rose.  She ran to the door to see William, Greer and Soprano on the porch, crouched behind rain barrels, guns aimed on the bandits.  Sforzando was beside Soprano, bandaging his bleeding arm with a strip of fabric torn from her dress.  

"Please... stop this!" Rem shouted, stepping out onto the porch.  She stood straight and addressed the bandits.   "You don't really want to do this.  We've done you no harm.  This is no way to live."  

The bandit leader smiled at her.  One of the other bandits laughed.  "She's purdy," yet another of the men said.  

Rem's heartbeat pounded in her ears.  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.  

"Will you come with us?" the leader asked.  "If you come with us, we'll leave everyone else alone."  

"Rem, no!" William gasped.  

Rem spoke nervously, shaking.  "Will you... Will you really leave the others in peace... if I go with you?"  She didn't like at all the idea of becoming these outlaws' plaything, but she wasn't really thinking about that at the moment.  She thought only to appease these men now, and to try to escape them before anything happened to her, though she had no idea how.  She wanted her adoptive family to be safe, and for the moment, it was all she thought about.  She walked forward one more step.  

"That's it, sweetheart, come on," the bandit chief sneered.  

A gunshot rang out.  Rem screamed as a fine spray of dark crimson erupted from the man's head and he fell from his thomas.  His body dropped with a thump into the sand as the thomas panicked and ran.  The other men's beasts reared up and moaned.  

"He got the boss!" someone yelped.  Rem glanced back to see smoke trailing from the muzzle of Greer's gun.  More gunfire erupted, this time from the weapons of the remaining bandits.  Rem hit the ground.  Soprano, William and Greer exchanged fire.  The air was filled with shouting, smoke, and the scent of blood.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rem sat in a chair in the kitchen, shivering and crying.  Dr. Greer carefully wrapped a bandage tightly around the wounded arm of Soprano, who was sitting in another chair, after having removed the bullet from the young man's flesh.  

Sedona's sheriff had arrived with his small contingent of deputies – a tiny and poor police force, but thus far, it had been all Sedona had needed.  Three of the bandits had escaped.  Four had been wounded by the Bluesummers' and Greer and were now in the local jail.  

The leader of the gang, due to Salem Greer's swift bullet, was dead.  The sheriff made sure the family was okay, and left Soprano to the expert hands of the doctor.  After interviewing everyone, the sheriff decided Greer's action to be justifiable homicide, an act of self-defense, and decided that no charges needed to be pressed against him.  Sedona's undertaker took the body away.  

Rem couldn't stop crying.  Sforzando rubbed her shoulders, her own face in tears.  Melody made tea.  

"It's okay," the girl said, "We're okay... we're okay."  

Salem turned to Rem after finishing with Soprano.  

"I'm sorry," he said.  "I'm sorry you had to see that."  

"Why?" Rem asked, shaking, "Why did you do that?  You killed him... why?" 

"He was going to take you." Greer replied.  "I couldn't let them do that."  

"I was trying to keep anyone from being hurt..." Rem whispered, "I just needed more time."  

"Rem, listen," the doctor spoke in a gentle but serious tone, "There's no negotiating with people like that.  They would have taken you.  They would have done terrible things to you.  They probably would have killed you.  I had no other choice.  I couldn't let that happen."

Rem looked up at him, her eyes glazed with stress and sorrow.  "Things shouldn't have to be that way." 

Salem Greer regarded her with a dark look.  "You're right.  They shouldn't."  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be Continued!!  Turn to the Next!!  

S. E. Nordwall, 2003 


	4. Where the Streets Have No Name

Disclaimer: Trigun, its world, and it's characters... I don't own.  All Trigun characters and Planet Gunsmoke are copyright Yasuhiro Nightow and other license holders.  This fanfiction based on the anime cannon, but if you've read previous chapters, I'm sure you knew these things already. 

Author's Note: So sorry about taking so long on getting this out.  Lately, I have been concentrating heavily on my original works, thus neglecting my fanfiction.  When I finally complete this, it might be my last fanfiction, but...maybe not.   I do have an idea for a "Matrix" story I could write... However, my lack of gusto for fanfiction is not due to lack of ideas – it's due to my wishing to work on my originals.  Who knows? Maybe by this time next year or a few years from now... I'll actually get my novel perfected and published. I do like to dream... 

Thank you to Dead Legato.  You know why. 

JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

Part IV 

She traced her finger over the headline on the front page of the September 7th, AF 0024 issue of The Southern Cornelia Dispatch.  The print stared back at her in bold, sans serif letters:  

LONE GUNMAN FOILS ROBBERY

The smaller print read: 

----- Citizens of Dos Angeles got quite a show Monday when a mysterious gunman foiled an attempted robbery on the First National SEEDS Reserve Bank of Dos Angeles.  

The bank manager was reportedly uncooperative with the robbers, resulting in a hostage situation.  The sheriff of Dos Angeles and his posse were in a standoff with the five young criminals for half an hour before a young man in a red coat came along. 

"He was walking down the street, happy as could be, listening to a compact disc player," a witness reported, "To tell the truth, he looked like a total idiot, oblivious as to the dangerous situation going on.  A'fore ya know it, he stumbles right into this standoff.  He was just standing there, in between the posse and the bandits – took off his headphones and yelped like a cat who got its tail caught in Granny's rocker." 

What happened next varies between several witnesses, but most reports have this strange young fellow negotiating with the robbers.  

"Negotiations broke down," another witness stated.  "One of the robbers held his pistol to the head of one of the hostages.  He was about to shoot her when... all of a sudden, the gun flew right out of his hand!  He shook his hand, screaming and cursing, waving blood everywhere... The weird guy in the red coat had in his hand a huge silver revolver – never seen a gun quite like it in my life.  Anyway, that's when the fireworks began." 

What ensued, according to witnesses, was a raging gunfight between the four remaining robbers and this man in the red jacket.  

"The sheriff's posse didn't even get to fire off a shot!" a third eyewitness proclaimed.  "Quicker than lightning, all the robbers were down.  The most amazing thing about this whole ordeal... no one died."   

The five young bandits were taken into police custody, all with minor injuries.  No one else was hurt.  When questioned, the young gunman who saved the day stated that he was "a hunter of peace."  When asked his name, he stated simply "Vash."  No surname was given.  

The people of Dos Angeles have been left wondering if this "Vash" is the same as the mysterious vigilante who has been reported in other cities and towns around the Tri-Province area.  

"The character matches the description," the sheriff reported, "and in each incident where a name was given, it was 'Vash.'  I'm grateful to the young man for taking care of our situation, but I still think he's dangerous and needs to be taken in.  Law enforcement should be left to the police, not to rouge individuals."  

_ David Dastun, Southern Cornelia Dispatch ------

Rem took a pair of scissors and began to trim the article out of the paper.  A box sat on the desk beside the newspaper, full of articles clipped from other periodicals.  From diverse sources, all these articles had one thing in common. 

"Another article?" a deep voice asked.  Salem Greer came up behind Rem and planted a quick kiss on her cheek.  

"Yeah," she told him.  "It's... it's him... I know it's him.  It just has to be.  There was a daguerreotype with the article.  The photo looks like... my little boy – an older version, of course, but it's just unmistakable."  

Many years after the Fall, stories sprang up about a mysterious gunslinger in red.  He always wore red.  He was usually described as having blond hair in a spiked style; soft facial features, blue-green eyes, and went by the name of Vash.  Described as generally kind-hearted and helpful, he was a vigilante that roved across the desert, who would show up in the cities and settle disputes.  There were many reports of him saving people from criminals and dispelling feuds without bloodshed.  It was also rumored that massive amounts of property damage came about as a result of his interference.  

To some, this vigilante was a hero.  To others, he was a menace. He'd gained many nicknames over the years: "The Red Bull," "Hurricane Vash," "Vash the Stampede," and some others.  

"Are you sure, Rem?" Salem questioned, "You've been collecting these articles, listening to these stories, practically obsessing over this person... honey, what if it's not him?  You've checked every survival record we could find..."  

"I know," Rem whispered, "but I really believe that this man is my Vash.  In all our years of searching... we've seen nothing of Vash or Knives, but these stories – He might be my boy, Salem.  Maybe he's not, but I've got to know.  I've got to find him."  

"So, you are leaving?"  

"I'm afraid so," Rem said with a heavy sigh.  "I will ride to Dos Angeles and see if I can find him from there.  It was the last town he was in.  If I do not find him after three months, I will come back.  If I find him and he is my little boy, I will still come back, hopefully with him.  I regret that you cannot come with me..." 

"The practice," Salem said.  "Sedona needs me here, especially after the epidemic.  The city council will not let me leave.  Too many people are still recovering." 

Salem Greer and Rem had been married for close to nineteen years now.  They lived in their own little combined house and medical clinic off the main street of Sedona.  Despite attempts to conceive, they remained childless.  Their romance had a slow progress at first, but both were lonely souls surviving in this harsh land, and both cared for one another deeply.  Rem had forgiven Salem for the time he killed to save her.  

Sforzando and William Bluesummers still lived on the edge of town and raised thomases.  Soprano married a pretty artist and had two children; a daughter named Desdemona and a son named Legato.  Melody remained single and worked at the town's Plant.  Rem, too, worked at the Plant, as she was one of the few people qualified to work with what was quickly becoming lost technology.  She, however, for the time being, was allowed to come and go as she pleased.  Her husband, due to a recent illness that had swept through the area, was legally bound as a doctor, by Sedona's town council, to stay in the town until such time as they saw fit to allow him liberty of movement.  With all the dangers of this new world, many of the city and provincial governments became harsh in order to see to the survival of the majority of the public.  

"I know that you have to do this," Salem sighed.  "I will miss you, but I want your heart to be at peace.  I know it will not be until you know for sure."  

Rem rose from her seat and embraced her man.  "Thank you...," she whispered.  "Thank you for understanding.  If... If it is him, my Vash.... we'll finally have a son.  Perhaps, even, Knives is alive and Vash knows where he is."  

________________________________________________

Rem saddled her thomas at sunrise.  She outfitted her saddlebags with a plethora of supplies.  Water was the most important, followed by food that would keep well on the trail – dried fruit, hard tack, and beef jerky.  Before she began the three-day ride to Dos Angeles, she slipped something in her belt that she prayed she'd never have to use.  Truly, she only carried it for Salem's sake: a Colt .45 pistol.  

She adjusted her wide-brimmed hat and mounted.  As she set off, she waved to those gathered to say goodbye.  Salem was there, of course, standing on their front porch.  The entire Bluesummers clan was there, too.  Sforzando and William were there, with their hair of gray and wrinkled, sun burnt faces.  Also there was Melody in her plain summer dress.  Soprano waved to her, holding the hand of two-year-old Desdemona while his wife held a squirming, four-year old Legato on her hip.  

Rem blinked back tears.  She would be back as soon as she could be – perhaps with a new member of the family.  If she did not find Vash after three months, she'd still come back.  As she kicked Majestic, her thomas, into a trot, she glanced back one more time.  The figures of her loved ones grew distant.  Still, she could see Legato pulling his mother's hair. 

Soprano's daughter and son were fine children and Rem had babysat for them often.  Legato was a handful, though.  He seemed to be perpetually hungry.  Aside from that, he was a very intelligent boy and Rem wished that she and Salem could have a son like him.  

The edges of Sedona disappeared over the sand dunes.  This was the beginning of a long stretch of wilderness between Sedona and Dos Angeles.  The sands stretched out gold and pale for countless miles, the horizon only broken by the occasional rock formation.  The sky was stretched above like a cerulean blanket, as featureless as the desert.  

Rem couldn't help but feel a sense of beauty from it all.  It was a stark beauty, magnificent in its bleakness, with only simplicity to offer.  This land was not what she had imagined Project SEEDS to lead to when she joined.  She had known the probability that the planet humanity would colonize would be much unlike Earth, but the plan originally had been to work with the Plants to make whatever world they found to live on a green, kind place.  Not enough of the original project had survived the Fall to make any significant portion of this planet into a temperate climate.  

There were deserts on Earth like this, but Rem hadn't been to any of them.  She grew up in a city, and that was in what was once a wooded area.  Despite steel, concrete, and pollution, there was green grass here and there, in the parks, and trees growing in people's yards and along streets.  Rem missed trees – a lot.  Still, she loved this land.  It was open, clean, and free.  It was pure, wild nature, unexploited, uncorrupted.  

Majestic plodded along, shuffling the sands with his large feet.  Rem looked at the sky, remembering.  She still felt to blame, after all these years.  She still could not recall all that had happened.  So many people in Sedona, and most of all, Salem, had long assured her that she did all that was humanly possible to save the fleet – and that it was probable that everyone now living on this planet was living because of her actions.  She felt caught between being a savior and a failure, and she did not know which she truly was.

She made camp by night and was serenaded to sleep by the desert's wild night sounds.  Native rodent-like creatures scuffed the sand.  Coyotes howled their piercing, eerie songs.  Coyotes and dogs had immigrated with the humans.  They were among the few Earth animals that survived well in this new world.  

Rem dreamed that night of people in her life long lost.  She dreamed of Vash and Knives.  She dreamed of Joey, of Mary, of Rowan and of Steve.  She dreamed of the family she had left behind back on Earth.  She dreamed of an apparition of Alex, her first love, long dead.  In the dream, he was happy that she had moved on with her life, and urged her to go north... she awakened to hot thomas breath in her face and Majestic licking her nose. 

_____________________________________

Dos Angeles was a small city, but it was at least twice the size of Sedona.  After gleaning what information she could from the newspaper office, Rem went to the bars.  She carried the week's article about the foiled robbery attempt, and pointed out the photograph, asking about the man in it, and where he went.  

"Strange fellow," the bartender said.  "He left last Wednesday – headed due north in an old jeep.  Liked Wild Turkey and donuts, he did.  Can't tell you much more about him.  Oh, miss?  I can't give you a pint of whiskey unless you show me an I.D."  

"Huh?" Rem questioned.  "Oh, I'm a lot older than I look."

"They all say that."  

Rem dug her City of Sedona Confirmed Survivor Resident Card out of her jeans pocket, giving the bartender a sly smile.  He looked at the photograph on the card, then back to her, and looked at it again.  

"This says you should be 47.  You don't look it."  

"Uh, yeah, I get that a lot," Rem said, taking her whiskey.  "Technically, I am over a hundred."  

Rem still held the appearance of being in her mid-twenties, despite her years of life.  Some even took her to be a teenager.  The many years she'd spent in Coldsleep had, of course, suspended her aging while she was in it.  There were after effects when she was awake, too, a slight slow-down in aging.  Still, she knew that something was odd about her, ever since the Fall.  Everyone she knew of the first generation colonists – those that, like her, had been subjected to Coldsleep – aged fairly normally.  The Coldsleep after effects only lasted for a few years.  Children that had been in Coldsleep grew up.  Men and women grew wrinkled and gray-haired.  She had not a wrinkle on her face, and her hair – all of it - was still the same raven color it had been when she was only 20.  Neither Salem or any other physician had an explanation for her apparently youthful condition.

She stepped outside and put her bottle of whiskey in a saddlebag.  Rem was not a drinker.  She had not bought the whiskey for the purpose of getting sloshed.  It was for medical purposes, for sterilization and for a painkiller, should she or her thomas have an accident and need it.  The last time she'd been drunk was at Soprano's wedding reception.  According to those who remembered it, she was going on and on about love and peace and about how the meaning of the universe could be found in bagels or something like that.  She remembered trying to sit in a chair and falling on her fanny, but that was about it.  She didn't want to ever act that weirdly ever again, if she could help it.    

She was broken out of her thoughts by screaming.  A woman ran out into the street, chased by a burly, hairy-armed man.  

"Please!" the girl cried, "Please, stop!  You don't understand!"  

"You filthy whore!" the man bellowed.  He smacked the woman across the face.  "How dare you?  How dare you!"  

"Lover's spat again," a passerby sighed.  He addressed the man in the dusty street.  "Dorian, calm down!" he cried.  

Dorian bore down on the woman again, slowly stalking towards her.  "You don't understand, Billy, I caught her this time!  I caught her with Fergus!  Kissin' all over 'im, him with his arms all over her... unbuttonin' her shirt.  Never again, you hear me, Eliza?  Never again!" 

The man drew a gun from his belt, and pointed it at the woman he addressed as Eliza.  "Never again, you hear me?  The place for sluts is Hell!"  

Rem reacted.  It was a foolish thing to do, but she had to do something, and could think of nothing else at the time.  She ran out into the road and pushed Eliza aside.  She found herself, in the dusty, sun-drenched street, standing in front of a very angry man with a magnum.  She held her hands out to him.  

"Please, sir..." she quavered, "Think about what you are doing.  There is no need for this!"  

The man stared at her, his handgun twitching.  His face was red, and his eyes bulged with rage.  "She's a whore!" he screamed.  "She promised herself to me forever, and she's betrayed me!  Don't interfere with me when I'm dealin' with my property!"  

"Property?" Rem said, a scowl crossing her brow.  "Property?  Since when is any human being anyone else's property?"  

"Outta my way!"  

"Not if you are going to shoot her!  Whatever it is, sir, it's not worth taking someone's life over."  

"I'll decide that! Get out of my way!" 

Eliza cowered behind Billy on the porch of the bar.  Rem walked slowly backwards, keeping herself ever in front of Dorian.  She'd forgotten about the .45 in her belt.  She wouldn't have actually used it, anyway, had she remembered it.  Before she knew anything else, Rem found herself on the ground, the street dust swirling about her, and she heard screaming.  

"Dorian! You freak!" Billy shouted, "Look what you've done! Look what you've done!  She had nothing to do with this!"  

"She was... in my way..." Dorian said, his hands shaking.  He dropped the pistol.  Two deputies grabbed him by the arms.  Rem saw the faces of two more men, and the faces of Billy and Eliza above her. She was completely confused.  Billy leaned over her.  "You're gonna be alright," he said, his face pale, "Don't move...we'll get you some doctors."  

"Huh?" Rem questioned, her thrumming heart finally slowing – then, she knew.  The pain hit in a massive wave.  She suddenly felt like the whole lower half of her body was being torn apart.  She screamed in her agony, and then fell into a fuzzy, rather pleasant feeling...

_______________________________________________

"Dammed Bernardelli Insurance forms!  Why do they have to make them so difficult to fill out?"  

Rem heard an unfamiliar male voice.  She felt tired, though, she knew that she was waking up.  "Salem?" she asked.  "Salem, is that you?"  

"She's awake, doctor," the male voice said again.  

"Good," a female voice answered.  "Glad to see you finally awake.  You'll be groggy for a while, but you're going to be just fine."  

"Salem?" Rem called again, reaching out.  A gentle hand held her back.  

"Lay back, sweetheart. Do you remember anything that happened?"  

"What?" Rem asked, opening her eyes to see a dark-eyed woman in a white medical coat. "Where am I?"  

"Dos Angeles General Hospital," the woman answered.  "You've been.... unconscious... for two weeks.  You lost a lot of blood.  We were worried that you'd never wake up." 

"What happened?" Rem whispered.  

"You were shot," the lady doctor answered frankly.  

Rem then recalled the standoff.  She looked at the ceiling.  "How bad am I hurt?" she asked, afraid of the answer.  

"Well..." the doctor sighed, shaking her head, "I do hate to give bad news... You will live.  The bullet missed all your vital organs.  You won't be disabled in any way except..."

"Except what?"  

"It tore apart your uterus." The doctor pointed to a spot on her own stomach.  "The bullet entered about here.  We got it out safely, but... I'm very sorry.  I'm afraid... if you were ever planning on having children..."  

Rem looked at the doctor in shock.  Her thoughts then turned to something else. "Does my husband know that I've been hurt?  Has he been contacted?"  

"We've not contacted anyone related to you, Mrs. Greer.  We have-"

Rem lurched upward in her bed, until hit by a dull pain in her abdomen and overwhelming dizziness.  She fell back down into her pillow.  "Contact him immediately!  He lives in Sedona-"

The doctor cut her off.  "More bad news, I'm afraid.  We haven't been able to contact him.... because... I'm sorry, Mrs. Greer, I'm so dreadfully sorry.  Sedona... no longer exists.  A vicious criminal gang raided it.  These bandits.... who ride modified caravan vehicles... they had great destructive weapons... bombs... And Sedona was such a small city..." 

"You're kidding, aren't you?" Rem said in a strained, shocked voice. "Please..."

"I'm sorry... everyone in the town that wasn't killed scattered."  The doctor looked down at her, eyelids heavy.  "I hate giving people bad news."  

_________________________________

To Be Continued!!  Turn to the Next!!

S.E. Nordwall, 2003.  

Endnote: I know, it seems like this fic is a series of "inventive and cruel ways to torture Rem!".  I really don't mean it that way, it's just the way the flow of the story is going.  Things will get better for the poor lady, I promise.  


	5. Angels of Devastation

Notes: Sorry about taking so long to update! Though I haven't been particularly busy lately work-wise (job-hunting, ugh), I've been distracted by the writing of other fanfictions and by inspiration for original works. I'm glad I'm finally writing this again.

Additional notes on the scripture in the first part of the chapter: Scriptural references taken from the New International Version Bible. When I have "LORD" capitalized, it is not meant to be "loud" or "shouting." This is correct and direct scriptural reference – "LORD" being (God the Father, in Christianity), and "Lord" being (God the Son / Jesus, in Christianity) (and thus in Christian translations of the Bible). The use of scripture is not heavy - but it is there and I wanted to clear up some little religious things for those who might misunderstand and to be correct in my references.

Disclaimer: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow, Victor Entertainment, and other people. I am making no money from this and am only writing out of love for the original anime.

JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

Part V

She watched the preacher pace the floor behind the pulpit. He waved his hands whenever he raised his voice for emphasis.

"The roles of angels..." he continued, "are many. I've discussed them as protectors of God's people, and as messengers. Now, we shall look at some scriptures that reveal another aspect of angels – one we don't often like to think about. We shall discuss their role as deliverers of God's judgment."

Rem had rarely seen a preacher so animated. The young man paced, paused and took a glass of water off the pulpit. He took a sip before continuing.

"Let us turn to the Second book of Samuel, chapter 24. In it we see King David taking a census of Israel and Judah to determine the number of his fighting men. He sinned against the LORD in doing so. He was prideful, trusting in his strength as king rather than in the LORD God."

Rem listened to Bibles being opened, the gentle rustle of thin pages being flipped. She held a Bible open in her lap, and was reading the chapter.

"David's seer, Gad, came to him with three choices of punishment for his sin from the LORD. Starting in verse 13: 'So Gad went to David and said to him, "Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now, then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me."

The preacher cleared his throat and ran his hand along the page of the open Bible on the pulpit. "David chose to fall into the hands of the LORD. God sent an angel to afflict the land with plague for three days. Seventy thousand people died. In verse 16 we see an angel with his hand stretched out to destroy Jerusalem. The LORD was grieved and told the angel to relent."

The young man wiped his brow before continuing. "After that, David repented. He offered sacrifice and his prayer for mercy on the land was answered. The point of our look into 2nd Samuel 24 today is this: That angels are not only messengers and protectors – they also can deliver the punishments of God. Angels can kill people."

Everyone had their gaze fixed on the young reverend. To some, these scriptures were old news, things they'd read time and again. To others, this view of angels was completely new. Rem didn't really know what to think. She'd read these passages before, but hadn't thought of angels in this way in quite a long time. She had a passing thought upon her "angels" – the Plant children she had raised long ago, Knives and Vash.

"And let us not forget the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah," the preacher continued. "The LORD sent two angels to destroy the cities because of their great wickedness. Some say that twenty-four years ago, when the city of July was destroyed, that an angel made its presence there. The light of the explosion, according to the survivors, was like nothing ever seen before in Heaven or on this planet. Many likened it to the nuclear explosions that happened in the wars of Old Earth – or to 'angelic light.' Perhaps what is said of angels and July is the truth. Perhaps judgment fell upon the city as a warning to this wicked planet of coming judgment for all the blood shed upon the sands."

The preacher stood still now and regarded everyone with a solemn gaze. "That concludes today's sermon," he said, "but I have a few announcements before I dismiss you. This will be my last Sunday at this church. As the regulars know, I'm going on a long journey to make some money for this place and I'm not sure when I'll be back. I've arranged for Reverend Patterson to handle the Sunday sermons and the Thursday Bible Study and for Reverend James to take care of the children. I will miss all of you and my prayers will be with you. I ask all of you to keep me in your prayers. You are now dismissed."

People filed out of the pews and walked up to the preaching platform. They offered out their hands to shake the young reverend's hand to wish him well. Rem was just a visitor here, but she found herself walking up to the platform, too. A little girl and a little boy were ahead of her. They hugged the preacher's legs tightly and cried.

"Mr. Wolfwood, please don't go! We don't want you to leave!" they whined.

"I have to go..." Wolfwood whispered, gently placing his hand atop the boy's head. He knelt down so as to be eye-level with the children. "I need to make money for the church, to take care of you. You know how the roof leaks and the west windows need to be replaced. Don't worry. I'll be back as soon as I can. Mr. James will take good care of you. You like playing with him, right?"

"But you're more fun!" the girl moaned. "Mr. James doesn't let us wrestle him like you do!"

The preacher laughed. "He is a bit of a stick in the mud, isn't he? I think you can break him out of that. I need to talk to the rest of the people now, okay?" He rose to full height and greeted Rem with his hand outstretched to receive a handshake.

"A visitor," he said with a smile, "It's always nice to see a new face. I'm sorry you caught me on my last day."

"It was a lovely sermon," Rem said politely as she shook his hand, "Reverend... Wolfwood?"

"Nicholas D. Wolfwood, at your service. And you, Ma'am?"

"Oh... Samantha," Rem whispered nervously, "Samantha Pemrose." Rem had been traveling the cities and towns of the planet Gunsmoke for over one hundred years now. She had found a need to change her name twice. She was alive, well, and little aged. She had crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and a shock of gray hair at her bangs, but otherwise, she had not aged in a normal human manner.

She had herself checked out for health anomalies by several doctors and had done exhaustive research into the aging processes of both humans and Plants. She had developed a theory on her aging. She remembered touching hands with the dying Plant just after waking up in the wreckage of Alpha Ship after the Fall. She believed that the strange tingle of energy she had felt when she touched the Plant's pale skin was responsible for her longevity. Rem had read about certain experiments that found that Plants could transfer some of their energy to other living beings. A study of mice given this treatment found that the mice lived three times their normal life spans. Similar results were found in Plant-treated flies. No such experiment had been formally done on any human subject.

Rem had needed the name changes, and various retooling of her identity, to keep suspicions about her down. She had no desire to become the study subject of some group of sadistic scientists. She had heard of certain cruel experiments done on low-level Plants. Rumors of human experimentation on First Generation people kept in Coldsleep abounded. She'd even heard of a black-market organ trade along some of the major trade routes of Gunsmoke. She would be of great interest to organ traders, as her body remained healthy and relatively young for so many years.

She let go of Wolfwood's hand. He had the most startling gaze she had ever seen. She regarded the dark blue eyes and the sly smile that he possessed. There was something unusual about him that she could not put her finger on. Maybe it was the smoky scent that clung to the air about him.

"So, how did you come by our little parish, Ma'am?" the preacher asked. "We don't get many visitors, considering how far away we are from the big towns."

"Oh, I was just passing through." Rem said. "I'm on a journey of my own. By the way... about the destruction of July... do you really think that was an act of divine judgment? The work of an angel?"

"Sure, why not?" Wolfwood replied as he exited the church with Rem and with the last of the parishioners. "This world is full of suffering and sin. Most of these orphans I take care of watched their parents get gunned down by outlaws. Judgment like that wouldn't surprise me one bit. People say that city got destroyed by Vash the Stampede. Heard many rumors about him. People call him 'The Devil's Helper,' but some people also call him an angel of vengeance. Maybe he is some kind of angel or force of divine punishment, sent upon this world by God to destroy us for our sins."

"My, Mr. Wolfwood," Rem said, "That's a pretty dour view of the world you have. The Stampede's just one man – I think most of the rumors about him are hyped up. None of us really knows what happened to July. I think... with a little work, and with kind people like you and the other pastors here who do things like take in orphans – I think there's hope for this world to become a better place in the future."

Safely out of the confines of the chapel, Wolfwood lit a cigarette and took a long drag. "Ah... been waitin' to do that all morning," he sighed.

Rem looked at him oddly. "I've never met a priest who smoked before. You know, those things will kill you."

"I think this world will kill me first."

* * *

Of the many things Rem had experienced, three things stood out the most vividly in her memories. The first of these things was the image of Vash's small, chubby, tear-streamed face as she closed the escape pod with him and Knives inside during the Fall. The second thing that took a vivid hold on her memory was the scent of stale death around Sedona when she had rode back to the town after hearing of its destruction. The third thing that seized her mind was the destruction of July.

She'd been a wanderer for many years now, a drifter going in and coming out of the cities and towns all over the western hemisphere of Gunsmoke. She never stayed in a city for more than six months. She often camped in the desert. She followed reports of "Vash the Stampede" closely, determined to find him. She was certain that he was her little boy. She'd come across scant reports of an outlaw named "Knives," too, but no one seemed to know much about him. She was not as sure that this "Knives" was the Knives she had known as she was about Vash.

Reports on Knives surfaced before the destruction of July and were linked to scenes of mass murders. News would come up of a caravan discovered waylaid in the outlands with no survivors, the name "Knives" scrawled in red paint on one of the overturned vehicles. Word had come occasionally about a small village or family estate where every person therein was brutally murdered and the name "Knives" was found written on a door, an interior wall or the side of a barn in the victims' blood.

The reports of the mysterious "Knives" stopped after July was devastated. Reports about Vash increased. The reports had changed, too. A person thought to be a helpful if slightly dangerous vigilante became a vicious mass murderer and "angel of destruction" in the rumors. People spoke of entire villages slaughtered by Vash, of eyes that burned with the fire of Hell, of valleys filled with bones and lakes of blood.

Rem listened to the rumors and to official reports. Officially, Vash the Stampede was merely suspected in the destruction of July. There was no official record of him actually having taken any lives. Rem wondered about her "angel." She was certain that the legend was her child – for she knew what he was. He was one of "the ones that lived outside of time." Photographs, drawings, and descriptions of him changed very little over the years. Rem paid special attention to the rare photographs that were published. She wondered if he really was responsible for what happened at July. She wondered if the darker rumors about him could be true. She didn't think that the child she knew would be capable of such terrible things. In any case, she desired to find him and to learn the truth.

Vash and Knives, if she could find them, would be the closest thing to family that Rem had left.

She rode back to Sedona from Dos Angeles after recovering from her gunshot wound. She found the entire city in ruins. The only living creatures that remained within were a few stray dogs, several stray cats and an old man. She found her and Salem's house burned out. The Bluesummers estate was in similar shambles. The old man took her to the edge of the ruined city to show her the graves he alone dug for what remains he could gather. Salem Greer, Rem's husband, was among the dead. The Bluesummers family had survived, but fled.

Rem spent many years searching for the Bluesummers. She never found them. She followed reports of Vash the Stampede, and followed him to any town he was reported to be in or near. Whenever she came to such a town, she learned that he was gone as soon as she had arrived.

It was night when she came to outskirts of the city of July. After an exhaustive search of survival records in many town libraries, Rem had learned that the son of a cousin of hers was the mayor of July. She sat upon her tired thomas on a cliff overlooking the city when the disaster hit.

The light began at the center of the city and spread out like a wave. The thomas moaned. Rem rode swiftly away from the city as light filled the sky above her. The wind hit afterward. She was blown off her mount and skinned her arms on the gravel of the mesa. She looked back and the city was rubble and flames. She spent two days on the mesa; hunting down her fled thomas, which she found. She rode down into the city and met survivors. She did what she could to help wounded people.

Rem was sent with a party to get help from the nearest city, June. There was little that could be done for the citizens of July. Before the help party was able to make it back, the survivors in the ruins of July had degenerated to a state of brutality, stealing and murdering one another for the few recourses that were left.

Thereafter, the rumors of Vash the Stampede picked up. Rem continued to follow his trail, just as she had before, only now, she was left wondering. The destruction of July looked, to her, like the Plant explosions she had read about – rare occurrences, both on old Earth and on this new world, but they had been documented. Could her Vash, the sweet-natured child she knew, have done that? What of Knives? Could her intelligent, kind-natured Knives have become the murderer of rumor? Was he even alive? The rumors of Knives were gone from the world, having disappeared with July.

* * *

Rem rode away from the December parish at dawn the next day to continue her search for her angels of devastation.

To be Continued!! Turn to the Next!!

S.E. Nordwall, aka Shadsie


	6. Seasons of Murder

Disclaimer:  Trigun owned by Nightow, not me... maybe he'd give me Vash if I begged him really hard.... I DO own (a) Kuroneko, though!  I got a new kitten that's all black.  I named him Vash, too, so I guess I do own Vash! Ha!  

A thank you goes out to the readers of this fic, especially those who've been reading it from the start and have waited patiently for a WHOLE YEAR for me to start updating again! 

JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

Part VI

The gunshot echoed against the cliffs, shattering the silence of the still, hot, desert air.  The green Generic Whiskey bottle wobbled a bit.  Its brothers sat on the large, flat-topped rock, intact and sparkling in the harsh suns-light.  Two clear glass Corona beer bottles sat beside it, as well as one aqua-tinged container that once held Coca-Cola and a large, brown Dim Deam bottle.  The shattered remnants of one Coca-Cola bottle and one Corona bottle sparkled upon the rock like jagged jewels. 

"Drat it!" Rem grumbled.  "Missed again!"  No matter how much she practiced, she never seemed to get any better at this.  The bottles she'd hit, she'd decided she'd hit purely by chance.  She couldn't seem to repeat that performance.  She leveled her pistol again and took another shot.  The bullet cut the air and shattered the top of the Dim Deam bottle.  Rem stared.  "Wow... I did it again!" she said. 

Another shot missed.  The sun was hot and she peeled her gray bangs back from her brow, stuck there by sweat.  She sat down in the shade of her lean-to, next to her thomas.  A cat cornered up in the corner of the shelter mewled. She watched the clouds on the horizon – great thunderheads approaching like slow-moving flagships from the more mountainous regions of the continent.  The air was a mass, hot and semi-moist. The storms would probably arrive the evening of the next day.  This was the kind of day in the deep desert that sapped one's strength.  This was the kind of heat that eroded one's ability and will to breathe.  

Rem was out in the middle of nowhere, camping on the sand.  She was on her way to May City, and had to cross a great expanse of barren land – rumored to be crawling with sandworms, to get there.  She hadn't encountered any of the giant, carnivorous insects yet, and hoped she wouldn't encounter any.  She doubted that she could defend herself against such a creature with only a small revolver.  She'd heard that they generally avoided humans, anyway. 

She put her gun away.  It was a standard Colt six-shooter, and she only carried it for protection – mostly, for intimidation.  When in a city or town, she wore it conspicuously on her hip, its silver gleaming brightly from the holster.  People saw it and generally left her alone, believing that anyone who carried such a weapon knew how to use it.  She had learned the basics of aiming, firing, loading, cleaning, and all the other stuff that comes with the use and keeping of a gun – but she was never very good at using it.  Rem was determined to learn a decent aim.  She needed to.

Several months ago, she had caught a man trying to steal her thomas.  Rem was upset at what he was trying to do, and he was upset at being caught. An argument ensued and the man pulled a gun on her.  She had managed to draw her pistol first, and shot him in self-defense.  She had aimed for a flesh wound, specifically, his left shoulder.  Her bullet had entered his left lung.  The man had almost died. 

She had almost killed someone.  If she hadn't fired her weapon at all, the man surely would have killed her. It seemed that the entire world was like this – living in fear and by survival of the fittest.  Those who lived and prospered were those that had the best guns and knew how to use them to full advantage.  There were peaceful, sleepy little towns scattered over the surface of the planet, but the streets of the largest cities were fierce.  The border-towns and outlands were the most dangerous places.  No one who entered those places unarmed ever expected to leave them. 

Rem sighed and gently petted the cat.  She dared not move again from the shade of the lean-to until nightfall.  She was near heat stroke as it was.  She wondered, for a moment, as she often had, if she really had died so long ago in the Fall – and was now a resident of Hell.  She gently petted the head of the kitten that sat beside her. 

"I don't know, little guy," she said, softly.  "I don't think we were really meant to live in this land.  It is so harsh here.  Things could have been different." 

She paused for a moment.  "I suppose we didn't completely fail," she sighed.  "We are alive.  There are towns scattered all over the planet... we run the Plants to capacity – and sometimes beyond... we haven't terraformed... not like we could have had the fleet survived... but we are alive." 

Rem gazed out at the clouds again.  Theft and murder were ways of life in many of the outland towns, and even in some of the cities.  Whenever anyone discovered an offshoot Geoplant vein or an underground spring in the desert, a war would break out.  Family groups and political factions fought with one another in fierce land-wars over rights to such things.  Sometimes, the very resource that was disputed would be destroyed in the fighting.  This world was certainly not the world she had dreamed about when she joined Project SEEDS.  The seasons passed in murder and in fear.  Rare, now, would people even give a traveler a cup of water.  Distrust ruled the lands. 

Rem had left Inepril City three days ago.  She had arrived there on a report that Vash the Stampede was there.  She learned that, the day she arrived in town, he had left on the visiting sandsteamer to May.  The town lauded the man as a hero.  There was no way she could catch up to the sandsteamer at that point, so she stayed in the town and listened to people's stories.  She found herself particularly captivated by a charming little boy named Tonis. 

Far from the city-destroying menace most of the rumors bespoke and shelves of dime-novels had been written about, the Vash that these people knew was a kind, charming, and courageous man that had saved them from the infamous Nebraska father and son criminals.  Furthermore, he had saved their Plant from exploding – all after they had destroyed half the town trying to kill him for his bounty. 

Rem was shown instant-camera photographs from the citywide celebration that had occurred the night before she came into town.  Instant cameras were rare, but the bartender at the town bar had one.  She smiled as she looked them over.  The blonde man in the photos was definitely the boy she remembered.  She had decided to take a night's rest in the city, restock her supplies, and head for May in the morning. 

Now, she only hoped that "The Stampede" would still be in May City when she arrived there.  May was still two day's ride away.  The people of Inepril had called her crazy for heading out thomas-back.  Tonis was sure she would die in the desert.  He had begged her to stay. 

Rem thought about her "near-misses."  It seemed like every time she entered a town where Vash the Stampede was reputed to be, he had either gone or she had encountered some two-bit bandit using the name – a young punk who only vaguely matched the descriptions and who rarely resembled the wanted posters.  Only once did she ever get close to the "real" Vash, the man whom she sought. 

She was staying in a little town on the border of Neo Colorado at the time, Hawkeye.  She had awakened to the noise of chaos outside her hotel window.  Someone was crying that Vash the Stampede had arrived in town. She had hurriedly dressed and rushed downstairs. When she got out to the street, all she saw was a mob of people, men on thomases in the center of them, and dust. 

There were shouts and jeers.  Children threw stones at the center of the chaos.  She caught a glimpse of a man in red, tied with a rough rope, being dragged behind a thomas. She called out, demanding that the people stop what they were doing.  Her cries went unheeded. 

She had been wearing her hair short then, she remembered.  It was in a short crop that reached the center of her neck.  Rem did not know why she remembered this unimportant detail, of all things, but she remembered it nonetheless. 

"Amazin' that we caught him unarmed!" some man had exclaimed.  "Quite a fighter, but we got 'im!  The sixty-billion double dollars is ours!"

Rem found the sheriff.  She pleaded with him to bring order to the situation – for the man the vigilantes were dragging to death was getting far from a fair trail.  The sheriff simply dismissed her and gave approval to the mob's activities.  Rem was punched and hit with sticks when she edged her way into the mob.  The man who was dragging "Vash" behind his thomas untied the rope from his saddle and tossed it to two strong young men, who pulled it over the branch of the tall mesquite tree that grew in the middle of town. 

Rem watched with horror as the man was hung.  She cried out to him.  This _was_ Vash, her Vash.  This was the man on the wanted posters.  This was the man in all the newspaper photographs she had saved – the protector of the innocent she had read so many articles about before the destruction of July.  This was the boy she had known, now a man.  And he was hanging by the neck from the branch of a tree. 

He gasped and he struggled.  He kicked and writhed.  Rem screamed. She tried to run up to the tree, but was held back by people in the crowd.  She thought that Vash caught her gaze – just for a moment.  He kicked some more and gurgled.  His eyes rolled back and closed.  He stopped kicking.

The tree limb cracked and splintered.  Vash came tumbling down.  The noose loosened and he gasped for air.  He freed his hands and neck.  The crowd was soon upon him again, but he ran, and managed to duck down alleyways and side streets.  Never had Rem seen so many people bring out guns and knives in the pursuit of one individual.  The town was nearly destroyed before the townspeople gave up the chase, unable to find their man, who had apparently escaped into the desert. 

Such was the justice of most of the towns on this planet – the justice of the rope and the gun, and rarely a fair trail for anyone accused of a crime.  Rem shook herself out of old memories. She watched the sunset and made minor repairs to her prosthetic leg.  She oiled parts that were beginning to show some rust and polished the casing.  She pulled her jeans back on.  She had gained a few more wounds over the years.  She'd been shot twice from getting in the way of outlaws.  She had often wondered if this world could become a better place.  With every year and every season, it seemed as though everything spiraled from worse to worse. 

Evening fell.  Rem gathered up her supplies, loaded her thomas, and mounted.  She set off, once again, for May.  The cat climbed up on the saddle behind her.  She rode and watched the moons rise.  Several isles passed beneath the thomas' feet. 

Rem had her steed at a trot when he moaned and fell.  The cat meowed and jumped as the beast fell to its side and Rem was tossed to the dirt.  She recovered herself and saw the thomas moaning and kicking, unable to right itself. 

"Sssh..." she soothed.  She cautiously approached the flailing animal.  The toes of its right foot were bent unnaturally.  It was bloody and pieces of bone had broken through the skin.  The ankle was twisted.  The creature calmed down when she gently ran her hand down its headplate.  "Sssh...." she told it, "ssshhh." 

Sadly, she reached for the pistol on her belt. When a thomas' foot was broken in such a severe manner, there was nothing that could be done for the animal but to end its suffering.  The thomas bled profusely from its broken foot.  Rem had seen this type of injury before.  A thomas would bleed to death slowly if its owner did not shoot it. 

"Easy, Betsy, easy..." she said as she placed the muzzle of her pistol to the soft flesh just behind the mare's headplate.  Rem had prayed that she'd never have to do this.  She had seen it several times with different thomases and different riders.  She had hoped to Heaven that she'd never have to do it herself.  

Betsy was a good mare and one of many thomases Rem had ridden and kept over the years.  All of her steeds had aged and eventually perished – save one that had died young, a gelding thomas named Diego that had been shot out from under her. 

"Sssh.. Betsy," she soothed, a tear streaming down her cheek.  "It'll stop hurting in a little bit.  Goodbye..." 

Rem's pistol-hand shook.  She tried to squeeze the trigger, but her hand felt numb.  Her cat meowed.  She put her pistol back in its holster.  She stayed kneeling beside her thomas, stroking its headplate. 

"I'm sorry," Rem whispered, shaking her head and crying.  "I can't.  I just... I just can't."  The woman stayed there, beside her fallen steed, attempting to comfort it through the long night as it slowly died. 

To be continued!! Turn to the next!!

-Shadsie, 2004

Notes:  On the desert weather – deserts are really like that.  I live in southern Arizona and it is summer.  It is monsoon season currently.  I was inspired by the hellish heat I've been suffering through while writing this chapter.  I figure that Planet Gunsmoke must have a climate reasonably similar to that of Arizona.  As for brand names – I mixed made up brands with actual brands.  As far as the actual brands go and "will they exist so far in the future?"  - well, in the Trigun manga, I've noticed little things like "Heinz Ketchup" and "Tabasco"-brand hot sauce.  "Dim Deam" (a perversion of the name Jim Beam) is a brand name in the anime. (Look closely next time you watch)!  I chose to keep actual brand names around to keep with the feel of Trigun – only those brands which I think will stand the test of time (face it, Coca-Cola's gonna be around forever).


	7. Scars of Sadness

Disclaimer: As always, I do not own Trigun. Would sure be cool to own the copyrights and junk – I'd be rich! Or at least, out of the bad financial situation I am in now! (Any paid work out there for a weird fanfic writer? Please?).

JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

Part VII

Silhouettes danced in the dying light of the sunset. A crowd of people beat two figures on the ground with sticks. A few in the crowd carried pitchforks and other sharp farm implements. Two silhouettes stood out from the others, upon a cliff, stark in the fading light. One man was kneeling. One was standing. The standing man's coat tails flapped lightly in the wind. He held a gun to the kneeling man's head. The sound of a single gunshot tore through the heat-stifled air.

"VASH!" Rem awoke screaming. She pawed at her sleeping bag and at the cool sand around it. She gained her bearings and sat up. She put a hand to her head. "Again," she whispered.

She had been experiencing the same dream almost every evening for about a month. She always awoke from that one with a scream. She'd also dreamt lately that Vash was hurt, bedridden, being cared for by someone. She'd felt in that dream that Vash wanted to die. She'd kept telling him that he needed to wake up.

Rem dreamt of her Plant "son" often. Dreams of him always seemed more real than any others she had. He'd speak to her in these dreams, asking for her advice. These were largely lucid dreams. She knew that she was asleep, her body in a different world than her spirit. She would give Vash the best counsel she could think of at the time, then wake up.

Strangely, she rarely dreamt of Knives.

Rem lay back down. Already, the suns were warming the land to the point where the air was stale and clinging. This would be another one of those blazing days that sapped all one's motivation. Weary dreams tugged at the edges of her mind, coaxing her to return to them rather than get up. She got up anyway.

Humming an ancient song, she dressed and packed up her bedroll. She raided a nearby greenquail nest for breakfast, cooking the little eggs in a tiny frying pan over a hastily built fire. She finished eating and cleaning, and then packed up that, heading out on foot. Her latest mount had run off, and she had given up looking for it. If what she had been told was true, a man matching Vash's description was in a city only twelve isles away yet. She decided that she could make it on foot.

Rem did not know how long she'd walked under the glare of the suns. She had sweated and drank her three canteens dry. She saw a grouping of houses on the horizon. There was no shade for her to rest under out here, though she had wanted to. She pressed on toward the houses.

Sometime later, she found herself awakening to the splash of cool water on her face. She found herself stretched out on the hardpan earth, three shadows looming over her. Two were large. One was small.

"Ma'am? Lady? Are you alright?" she heard someone say. Someone was kneeling down next to her. That someone brushed the sweaty hair off her face. Rem replied with a confused "Mwa?"

"Milly, pick her up and bring her inside. I'll take Christopher."

Rem felt herself being lifted by strong arms. She heard another feminine voice speak to her. "You'll be alright, Ma'am. We just need to get you into some shade. Meryl's treated Mr. Vash for heat-exhaustion before, so she knows what she's doing."

Out of her periphery, Rem heard the fuss of a cranky toddler. "Mr. Vash?" she questioned, reaching up a weak arm to hold onto the shoulder of the large woman that was carrying her.

"Yeah," replied the woman. "He's our friend. We live with him and his brother. He and Mr. Knives are out right now in a therapy session. They'll be back before dinner."

Rem heard shod feet thump upon a wooden floor as a sudden wave of dark shade overcame her. She felt herself being laid down. The curious, chubby hands of a child touched her leg. "Don't bother her, Chris," she heard in the voice of the woman that had carried her. She heard more footsteps, then felt a cool, damp cloth on her forehead. "Drink," the somewhat harsher voice of the other woman commanded as she felt the edge of a glass touch her bottom lip.

Rem felt the cold wetness of fresh water slide down her throat, and she was grateful. "Th-Thank you," she managed. She tried to sit up, but a slender hand held her down.

"No," the harsher voice said. "Please, don't get up yet. Rest. You need to cool down."

Rem slowly opened her eyes. She saw the woman sitting beside her on small, wrought iron chair. The woman had a soft, kind face, gray eyes, and short-cropped hair. She had an air of seriousness about her. Rem saw the legs of other woman, who standing beside the first. Her eyes scanned upward, upward, and upward in a seemingly endless quest to find the woman's face. When she did, she saw a mop of dirty-blond hair nearly hiding a compassionate countenance that looked as though it had once been innocent – but had lost that a long time ago. The blonde woman was clutching the hand of a small, dark-haired child. He looked to be only a little more than a year old.

"What is your name?" the first woman asked. "Where were you headed? It's quite dangerous to travel in the desert alone."

"Rem," Rem croaked, forgetting for the moment any of her pseudonyms. "Rem Saverem-Greer. I was headed to Wells... outside of LR... Is this Wells?"

Just then, the front door opened. Two men came through, smiles on their faces. One man leaned upon the side of the other and appeared to be only just to be getting used to the use of his legs after a long period of atrophy. They paused at the doorway just after entering and stared at the woman on the couch.

Rem's eyes widened. She knew them – both of them. One of the men was that which she recognized from many newspaper clippings and wanted posters, as well as from those natural features, which only grow with age, but never truly change. The other she knew immediately, though she had not watched him grow in the same way as she had watched the first from afar.

Meryl rose from her chair. "We found her in the desert, only about five yarz from our doorstep, collapsed from heat-stroke. I suppose we'll send her on her way once she recovers. She said she was headed here, to Wells."

Instead of answering Meryl, Vash rushed to the couch and knelt beside it. Knives nearly fell down, but Milly helped him to stand and guided him to the nearest chair. Christopher climbed into his lap.

Vash regarded Rem's face quizzically. He brushed at her gray bangs lightly. He ran the fingers of his right hand delicately down her cheek. His jaw hung agape and tears began to well in his eyes, just as if he was looking at something impossibly beautiful and sacred.

He grabbed Rem suddenly, giving her a hug that made the small woman's ribs hurt. She felt the hot moisture of his tears upon her hair as he sobbed a strange, garbled mess of words and sounds, both infinitely joyful and infinitely painful.

"What are you doing, brother?" Knives demanded. His voice was not harsh, but worried, and a little sad.

"What ARE you doing, Vash?" Meryl yelped. "We brought this poor woman in to rest! What are you doing to her?"

Milly piped in. "I think Mr. Vash's found a long-lost relative!"

"It's you!" Vash cried. "Is it really you? Oh, it is! You feel like I remember you."

Meryl gave Vash a swift bonk to the head. "Let her go, you pervert! I don't care who she is – some past fling of yours! You're married to me now!"

Vash let Rem go. He looked up to Meryl with a tear-streaked, red face. "No, no! You don't understand!" he pleaded.

Knives leaned forward in his chair. He blinked twice.

"V-Vash?" Rem asked.

Vash hugged her again, more gently this time. "Rem... it's you, isn't it? It's really you..."

Knives spoke. "You're a fool, brother. It cannot be her. Rem is dead. We watched her die. Even if she did somehow survive, she was human. She would have aged and died long ago."

"It's her!" Vash whined. "I'd know her anywhere! I don't know how, but it's her!"

Meryl stormed over and suddenly grabbed Rem's sweat-stained shirt collar. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Are you some sort of imposter? How dare you dress up like this Rem-person to toy with his emotions? Can you walk yet? If you can, get out!"

"Meryl! Meryl! Please!" Milly pleaded. "You're scaring the baby!"

Christopher was wailing his little head off. He had climbed off Knives' lap and Milly held him, trying to comfort him.

Rem sat up. "I've been looking for you..." she said, "Vash... I've been... searching.... so many years. And Knives... you too... Knives..."

Knives blinked again. Vash gazed at her with a mixture of sorrow and expectation on his features. Rem sat up full on the couch now and regarded them both, ignoring Meryl, Milly, and the squalling child. She spoke calmly.

"Your designation numbers are Delta 27 A and Delta 27 B. Your full given names are Vashon Alexander Saverem and Knives _Millones_ Saverem. Your birthmother was Delta 26, nicknamed 'Miyuki.' Vash used to collect the bones of small birds, mice, and lizards that he found in the Geoplant and keep them in an old pillowcase. He also liked to pick apart owl pellets. Knives used to wet the bed but would try to cover it up with towels, baking soda, and carpet deodorizer."

Both Vash and Knives stared at the woman on their couch. Their eyes widened with every little piece of information she revealed about them. Knives scowled when the bedwetting was mentioned.

Vash grabbed her in a full hug again. "It is you!" he cried. "How? How is it you?" He was sobbing again, now. "I saw the ship blow up! I watched you die!"

Meryl simply stared at her husband. Milly beckoned Knives not to get up. His legs could not yet handle the stress without a crutch or someone to lean on. Christopher stopped crying.

"I DID NOT wet the bed," Knives growled. "Vash wet the bed. I covered it up for his sake."

"Calm down, Vash, calm down," Rem said, peeling his hands off her. "You hurt my ribs when you hug me so hard like that. Ssssh. If I may... have time to explain. I've been following you for a long time."

Rem spoke for a long time, trying to explain her strange journey through the years. She began with her awakening in the crash of Alpha Ship, as much as she could remember of it. She spoke of the Plant who had touched her – which she recalled was not Miyuki, but Delta 17 - "Eliza."

She spoke of her life with Salem Greer, and her years of wandering after that, following rumors of Vash. Everyone sat and listened, as to one of the traveling poets or legend-tellers that came through the small towns on occasion.

"I... I looked for records or mentions of Knives, too... but found none..." Rem nervously lied. She remembered well the rumors of the murderer Knives, but he was sitting right there, listening to her, and she decided that, no – that murderer could not be her Knives.

Vash held back his tears. He could not stop staring at Rem – aged a little now, tanned, rough-skinned. Her hair was still as black and as long as he remembered it, only now, she had gray bangs. Her eyes were still bright, like sparkling rich, black coffee, but she had crow's feet at their edges. He noticed the smattering of light burn scars up her neck and right cheek. He caught a glimpse of the veiny burn-scars over her right arm through the sleeve of her thin white shirt.

There was so much she didn't know. There was so much that he didn't want to tell her, but knew that she needed to know. He'd thought he'd put old wounds behind him. He thought that he had finally come to terms with living his life on his own, by his own words. Rem had returned to him. It was something that he'd always wanted. Now she was here – but life was just so complicated now. There was so much to explain – so much sorrow that he did not want to dredge up.

He had changed, and so had she.

Vash didn't want to tell her that Knives had caused the Fall. Knives wasn't completely trusting of humans now, but he had, at least, put away his desire to destroy the species. Vash had been taking him for "counseling sessions" with the Plant in LR. The three of them spoke in their own unique way. She had been helping Knives to see humans in a different light – basically, to understand Vash's view a little bit - over the past year. Milly and Meryl had been helping to change his mind, too.

Milly's son, Christopher, had perhaps helped Knives to see some good in humans the most. The child resembled his father, Nicholas D. Wolfwood. Milly named him Christopher because Wolfwood had told her once, that if he had ever had a son, that he would want to give him that name. Knives had regained consciousness three days after his birth. His enraged, anti-human rantings, as Vash treated his wounds, seemed pointless against little Christopher. Knives had grown to actually like the child. Christopher called him "Unca Knives."

Vash continued to watch Rem as she spoke. There was one more thing that he did not want to tell her, but knew he had to. It was what he dreaded the most. He felt his guts wrench when she spoke of the "family" she had found after the Fall. He took a private comfort when she spoke of Salem Greer – a man whom she had watched become a killer, but loved anyway. The name "Bluesummers" stabbed him like a dagger to the chest, every time he heard it. "Bluesummers." "Bluesummers." "Bluesummers."

Could he hide this from her? These many things? Perhaps just this one thing? - No. She deserved to know. She was his mother, Rem... his Rem.

Over a century's worth of explanations and stories would come in time, in their own time.

So, Rem lived there. Vash set up the guest room for her in the little cabin on the edge of Wells City that Meryl and Milly were renting with their Bernardelli Insurance pay. The situation for the girls had changed considerably, but they were still considered to be on duty of "risk-management," in watching over Vash and his brother – though Meryl was now officially married to the Humanoid Typhoon.

Rem spoke with Vash, with Knives, and with Milly and Meryl. She explained as much about herself and her life as she could, though even Vash could not figure out her strange pattern of aging. Milly was fairly forthcoming in speaking of her and Meryl's adventures with Vash. Rem learned the name of Christopher's father, and saw his photograph. She recognized him as the kind priest from the church in December she had once visited. Vash told her stories, but she felt that he was holding back, hiding things. She was afraid to pry, for his eyes were sad. His was a face like Milly's – a face that betrayed a loss of innocence. It was a face etched in lines of extreme pain.

So, more often than not, Rem and Vash spoke about pleasant things – memories of the good times they'd shared. Vash always seemed a little withdrawn, though, as though he wanted to ask something very special and sacred from her, but was afraid to ask.

Knives existed in that house like a ghost. He kept to himself, preferring to stay in his own small room most of the time. He was still recovering from terrible wounds. No one spoke of how he had received them. Whenever Rem passed by him, he would avert his gaze.

Rem wanted the truth. She would learn it, for her very presence here tread upon sacred places and scars of sadness.

She caught him, standing beside his bed, silhouetted by the rays of the morning sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. The door was open and he was folding laundry and placing it on the bed. When she saw him, she stood there in silence.

Rem had learned about the prosthetic arm. Vash had shown it to her, rolling up his shirtsleeve and taking off its leather casing. All he told her was that he'd had his arm shot off in a gun battle many years ago. He had shown her the machine-gun feature within it. He spoke of keeping in touch with friends who still had access to the Lost Technology. He'd planned to take her to meet them someday.

She'd wept over seeing the arm. She wept silently now. Vash was clad only in sweatpants as he sorted his and Meryl's laundry. She stood there, watching him for what felt like years before he turned and saw her. He let out a yelp and tried to cover his bare chest with his arms and hands. He ran to close the door, but Rem strode into the room before he could.

He fumbled with a button-up shirt, trying to put it on, and wound up only tearing one of the sleeves off in his haste. "Don't look!" he pleaded.

Rem put her arms around his waist and let tears drip down her cheeks. "Vash, no..." she choked. "You've been through so much pain... I never wanted this to happen to you."

"I'm ugly," Vash replied.

"No, you aren't." Rem whispered. "I... I want to know what happened to you. You've been hiding it all from me. I want to know what happened to you – everything. Please."

Vash sat down on the edge of the bed. Rem sat down next to him. He cried for a long time.

To be Continued!! Turn to the Next!!

Shadsie, 2004


	8. Desert Flowers and Bitter Truths

JOURNEY OF REMEMBRANCE

Part VIII

"I do not expect your forgiveness, and I do not ask for it."

Rem sat trembling next to Vash in Knives' bedroom. The sun poured in from the window behind the man that sat opposite them. Knives had made his confessions.

He had spoken of the computer virus he created and infected the SEEDS fleet artificial intelligence system with to alter the ships' course, causing the Fall. He spoke of how he had murdered Captain Joseph. He spoke of other murders he'd committed while wandering the planet. He spoke of his mistrust of humans. He spoke of the city of July. He spoke of the Gung Ho Guns.

"I am respecting my brother's wishes," he said. "I have no desire to kill you anymore. You are like cockroaches. No matter what I do, you remain. This planet is filled with your kind, surviving, replicating... constant reproduction. There is no way of getting rid of you. If our energy holds, Vash and I may wait until your species dies out on its own, or destroys itself."

Rem choked back tears. Vash rubbed her back to soothe her. "Ssh..." he said. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry that all this happened...."

"Knives?" Rem questioned. She reached out to him cautiously. "My little boy... no."

"Stay away from me!" Knives roared. Rem flinched. Vash wrapped his arms around her. "I'll take you back to your bedroom now."

Rem stayed there for three days.

She took her meals in silence when Milly brought them to her. She poured over the scraps of old news articles she kept with her, those she had carried with her in her travel-sack. She re-read the articles about the killings by "Knives" over and over again.

"Rem?" Vash said, gently knocking on her door and entering her room. "Rem, please... you taught me to move on. You taught me that there is always a blank ticket to the future. Rem... you saved everyone on this planet... Everyone that's here is alive because of you. I don't like seeing you like this."

Rem looked up from an article at him, her eyes filled with pain. "Vash..." she whispered. "Vash... I didn't live this long to find one of my sons a killer."

Vash winced and swallowed. He still had not told her of Legato. "Rem... he's... he's not a danger to anyone anymore. I made sure of that. I... I'm saving him. I'm taking care of him, just as you told me."

Rem looked down at the newspaper clipping in her hand. She spoke low, not looking up. "I cannot hate him," she said. "Despite everything, I cannot hate him. My logic tells me that I should hate him. He took so much from me and from you. He killed thousands of people... He made your life a Hell... "

"Rem..."

"I... just can't hate him. Whenever I look at him, I see that little boy I knew, a frightened little boy. Something in me wants to hate him. It would just be easier that way... but I can't." She looked up at Vash. Vash walked to the edge of her bed and sat down on the end next to her.

"I know," he said. "I feel the same way. For the longest time, I thought he had taken you away from me. Now, you're here. I spent my life in pursuit of revenge... trying to find him... protecting those you saved. I came to understand what you taught me... A great part of me hates him... but part of me can't."

He looked intently at Rem. "You wouldn't have wanted me to kill him."

"No..." she answered gently. "You did what you had to do. He's crippled, but it's for the best, really. Even he has a future. Killing him would be pointless now."

Vash smiled at her. "Come on. You've been cooped up inside for far too long. It's a nice day outside."

* * *

Knives sat on a rusty, wrought iron chair on the back porch of the house that was a rental in the names of Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe-Saverem. He stared out over the small garden in the backyard, at his brother, and at Rem, who were working in the garden. Vash pointed out the different flowers and vegetables he, Meryl, and Milly had carefully planted.

"Christopher Daniel Wolfwood! Get back here and let me put your diaper back on!" A frustrated Milly was chasing her son through the patch of corn and tomatoes. Knives smiled. It was always fun to watch the little spawn exasperate that big, dumb woman. Perhaps it was why he liked the child. Humans were not so bad when they were small. It was when they grew that they started causing problems. It was in earliest childhood that humans were more in touch with what made them animals. They were selfish creatures from the start, but did not pretend not to be as they did when they were older. With a young child, there was no pretense or pride.

Rem caught the naked-bottomed little Christopher. She held him and handed him, squirming and annoyed, back to Milly.

"Thank you, Miss Rem," Milly said. "You're so good with kids! I couldn't catch him!"

Rem smiled. "Oh, Vash used to do the same thing all the time when he was little."

Vash's face blanched, then reddened. "Rem!" he said.

"It's true!" Rem answered.

Knives grinned at his brother's embarrassment. Perhaps, he decided, having that woman back wasn't so bad. Most of the embarrassing stories of his and Vash's childhood she recounted were incidents with Vash.

His bones ached. He could walk and move a little, but, most of the time, he needed assistance. The bullets from Vash's Long Colt had not paralyzed him, but had severely torn many muscles and nerve connections. He could no longer regulate the energy in his body to form a flow strong enough to create an Angel Arm nor any other Plant-specific weapon. When he walked, he walked like an old man. If Vash had not left his gun in the desert, he would barely be able to lift it had he tried to use it. He would regain his vigor eventually, but it would be a very long time before he did, even for a Plant.

"I've always liked these," Rem said to Vash as she planted some Mexican golden poppies Vash had bought from a vendor in town. "They're one of the few Earth species that have done well here. They thrive on the desert hills. I suppose it's because they came from deserts on Earth originally. They're so delicate, yet they spring up in the harshest places."

Knives gazed at her. The woman was amazing, for what she was. He could feel the energy coming off her, the energy that his sister-Plant had given her. Rem was still a human, but that energy flowed through her. Knives felt it as a weak, but unmistakable sensation. Eliza must have truly seen something special in Rem to give her that gift. Even a dying Plant did not give their energy to others easily.

Rem was like he had remembered her, yet different in subtle ways. She did not seem as authoritative as she used to be. She seemed shorter, much shorter and smaller. She had the obvious physical differences – the shock of gray in the hair around her face, the small burn scars on her neck and cheek, the web of scars on her arm, her false leg, which jerked slightly in an odd way when she walked. Her manner, too, had changed. She seemed a little less... soft. She had the air of someone who had been scoured by the desert sands, polished hard. She had the aura of a survivor.

He watched her black hair stream out behind her, lifted by a breeze. What was he thinking? He actually found her... pretty. Knives was surprised by her. She did not seem to be afraid of him. She did not hate him, either. She treated him with kindness, like he had never done all the things he had done throughout the years. Was this forgiveness? Did she forgive him?

Knives had begun to feel a certain sorrow for all the killings he had done and for the pain he had caused his brother. It was only through Vash's gentle care and through speaking with their nearest Plant sisters that he had begun to realize the gravity of all his crimes. He did not bear a full realization. His was not a crushed spirit. He felt a certain sorrow, but very little of true regret.

Vash constantly spoke of what could have been had Project SEEDS been a success. He talked of how the planet could have been had the Fall not happened. He still believed that the world could have been something close to Paradise. Knives knew that a perfect place could not exist with humans, even if life was easier for them. He did not think about what might have been. Things were as they were. It made no sense to him to think of possibilities that would never happen.

* * *

"Rem.... I have something to tell you," Vash said one morning. "I...I've thought about how to say this."

Rem sat at the kitchen table. Christopher sat in his high chair, babbling and playing with dry Cheerios. Milly and Meryl sat on either side of Vash, who sat across from Rem. Milly and Meryl looked as though they knew exactly what Vash wanted to say to her, and that his news was very grave. Vash reached across the table and grasped Rem's hand.

"You know... how I've told you of my travels. You know of how I told you that I've protected people, and done my best to live according to what you taught me..."

"Yes, Vash..." Rem replied. "And you know how I've followed you. You know what I've heard about you, both the good and the bad. I watched you nearly get hung once... You've already told me about July and Augusta. You've grown up. You've learned to stand on your own ideals. It's a wonderful thing. Whatever you have to tell me, I can take it."

"Rem, listen to me," Vash insisted. "I... I killed someone." He looked down.

Rem simply stared at him.

"Legato Bluesummers," Vash said. "That little boy you told me you knew." Vash began to cry. "You taught me that no one had the right to take the life of another, but I killed him, Rem!"

"Now, now," Meryl said, reaching a hand over the table to Rem, a gentle, holding-back gesture. She turned to Vash and rubbed his back. "Vash, we've been through this," she said. "Sssh, stop this."

"He did it to save us," Milly said in a monotone – so different from her usual, high, cheery voice. "It's been so hard for Mr. Vash. He feels bad about it every day. He didn't know how to tell you about it."

Rem had learned already about a "Legato Bluesummers" being the chief among Knives' Gung-Ho Guns. Both Vash and Knives had spoken of his telekinetic powers and murderous ways. She had even learned that Legato had been given Vash's left arm as a twisted gift from Knives. Vash and the girls had spoken of his death, but not of the circumstances. They said that he had been shot by someone, but not by whom.

"Vash..." Rem said, "Please... look up. Look at me."

Vash hesitated.

"Vash, please. It's okay. I understand."

Vash looked up and looked into her eyes. "You do?" he asked.

"Yes, Vash, please... stop crying. You cannot change what happened, just like I cannot change the fact that Salem killed for me... or what happened to Sedona after I left to search for you. You're a good man, Vash. Believe it. You can only walk forward now, as can I. All any of us can do is walk forward."

Meryl smiled at Rem as she hugged her husband. "Thank you," she mouthed to Rem. "Thank you."

* * *

Rem stood in the garden, playing with the red petals of the flowers she had just picked. They were a species of flower native to the planet. They required very little water and had stems covered in long thorns. A person picking them had to be careful of the thorns, which Rem was. As she rolled a stem over in her hands, however, she pricked her right thumb, which bled in a thin stream down her hand. The color of the flowers was the same as that of her fresh blood.

She turned as she heard the sound of shuffling. Knives walked up to her on a pair of crutches. He glared at her.

"Oh, Knives..." she said. "I didn't know you were out here."

"Do you really forgive him?" Knives asked. "Vash was always the good son, a good little boy."

Rem looked at Knives quizzically.

"Do you really forgive me?" he asked. He crutched closer to her. Rem felt the heat of his breathing. He glowered at her, menacing. "Tell me that you are not afraid of me, Rem."

"What are you talking about, Knives?" she asked.

He leaned on his crutches and reached an arm out to her. He gripped her left shoulder. "I cost you your leg," he said, almost hissing. "I tried to kill you. I've murdered thousands of humans. I've lost count of how many people I've killed."

His fingers reached for the back of her neck. "I could look a human full in the face while snapping their neck. It was so... simple. Tell me you're not afraid of me."

Rem trembled and began a half step to back away. Knives leaned into her movement and kissed her on the lips. He swiftly grabbed his loose crutch and shuffled away as close to a run as he could muster. Rem stood there, clutching her flowers. A thorn pierced another of her fingers. She clenched the stems, letting that thorn dig into her flesh. She shivered and looked at the retreating Knives, not knowing what to make of what had just happened.

* * *

Knives sat in his bedroom and shook his head. He pounded his fist on his dresser. "No! No! No!" he grumbled to himself. "This is wrong!"

Everything about this was wrong. Rem was supposed to be dead. Legato was dead. Legato had been the only human that Knives had given physical affection to. Even then, it was something that he felt defiling, something he did only to serve a need. He had wanted Vash, then, all those years. He had wanted to hold Vash, to snuggle next to his brother while lying down to sleep. He had defiled himself with the filthy flesh of Legato in ways that many humans considered vile, and that nearly anyone would have considered vile had Legato actually been Vash.

He had not loved Legato, though Legato had loved him. Legato had merely fed a need for him. Vash had never reciprocated Knives' love in a physical way on the level he would have liked. Vash had taken care of him, but did not want that kind of love. Vash had chosen his mate – the short, human woman. Knives was relieved that no children would come of their union. Plant and human genetics differed from each other too greatly to produce children.

Knives was confused by feelings that were coming up in him since Rem had been living with them. His and Vash's affection for her when they were children had always been something that differed from sons' love for their mother. Certainly, they both had loved her in the way that children love a parent, but there had always been something more and stranger there as they had grown into the human equivalent of older childhood. He remembered that Vash used to talk about how he had wanted Rem to marry him. Knives had told him that it wasn't possible, because people had to be grown up to get married. Both of the twins had grown up fast.

Even when Vash had hugged Rem now, there was something in his embrace that made Meryl twitch ever so slightly. If asked, she would surely deny it, and probably wasn't even aware of it herself, but Knives noticed these things.

The convalescent Plant found Rem fascinating. He'd felt a pleasure at frightening her, just a little, but she did not run away. So easily she could have pried his hand off her and thrown him to the ground. He was still weak enough for almost anyone to overpower him, even a small, delicate woman.

For a moment, he thought he understood. Rem had, indeed, forgiven him.

* * *

Rem lived with Vash, Meryl, Milly, and Knives. She became a friend for the girls to confide in, a comfort to Vash, helped him to take care of Knives. She became something of a grandmother to Christopher.

Vash acquired a job for her at the nearby Plant. She worked under her real name, a name unremembered now on Planet Gunsmoke. She kept how she had come to know lost technology so well a secret, however. Her graying hair and crow's feet helped her to convince the townsfolk that she was the mother of "Ericks Saverem."

It was a more peaceful life than she'd had in a long time. Vash, whose face had been so sad when she had first begun living with them, seemed to be growing calmer and happier by the day, though his eyes always held a soft pain, the look of a person who had forever lost their innocence.

Milly and Meryl sent confidential reports to the Bernardelli Insurance Society, working and getting paid entirely via correspondence. Milly kept a gentle sense of grief about her, remaining mournful of Nicholas D. Wolfwood, but threw herself into raising their son, and into "taking care of Meryl and Mr. Vash," because it is "what he would want me to do."

Knives shuffled about the house and yard, grumbling about this and that. He seemed, to Rem, to grow softer by the day. Vash told her that she didn't know the half of it. He continued his strange glances at her, and strange, but non-violent behavior.

This was not the future Rem had envisioned when she had joined Project SEEDS. This was not the life she had envisioned having upon finding her sons again, but this life was nice enough. It was a strange, but quiet life.

Knives looked up to her as she was about to help him up out of his chair one afternoon.

"Rem..." he said.

She paused and looked at him. He'd grown up and had grown handsome, but he was still her little boy. "What is it, Knives?"

"Rem... I think I love you."

Rem responded with gentle laughter. "Silly boy," she said.

THE END.

S.E. Nordwall, "Shadsie" 2004.

"Trigun", its world and all its characters Copyright Yasuhiro Nightow.

"Miyuki" and the "Delta System" Copyright Robert A. Stott "ArkNorth," Used with Permission.

"Greenquail," "Salem Greer," and the Bluesummers family save Legato Copyright S.E. Nordwall, "Shadsie."

Notes to Readers on The Fanfiction Network: Yes, this is the end of the story. Whew!

I am planning on revising the entire story, chapter by chapter – to rid it of obnoxious little things I've discovered like typos and such. I plan to delete this story in its current form from eventually and to repost it with all chapters after revision. I do plan upon saving the reviews I have gotten for it and posting them as end notes on the final chapter when I make the revision version.


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